The Ferris wheel
by Zariha321
Summary: This is one of my favorite scenes from the book. The Ferris wheel scene from Four's POV.


The Ferris Wheel Scene

Out of the corner of my eye I can see that she has looked away and is gazing at the Farris wheel.

Suddenly Tris is no longer standing there, she has made her way quickly and quietly over to the Ferris wheel. She stands on the bottom rung and looks up. She tests her weight on the bottom rung and seems to have decided to climb.

"Tris," I say to her in a low calming voice so that I don't startle her.

"Yes?" she says.

"I came to find out what you think you're doing."

"I'm seeking higher ground, I don't _think_ I'm doing anything," she says.

I smile at her in the dark, I knew she was brilliant and I knew she would come up with a good plan.

"All right," I say, "I'm coming."

"I'll be fine," she tells me. She sounds like she thinks the reason that I want to go with her is because I don't think she can handle it. She couldn't be more wrong!

"Undoubtedly," I reply. I hope she can hear the respect and confidence that I have in her.

She begins climbing and I wait until she get a way up before I follow. I am faster than she is and I quickly catch up with her. My hands reaching the rungs as her feet leave them.

At this point I have no idea what I was thinking following her up here. My mind definitely wasn't on climbing; I just wanted to be with her. But now here I am climbing up this Ferris wheel, and I'm terrified. Okay, I need to ignore my fear and just keep going. So I decide to talk to her.

"So tell me…," I say quietly. "What do you think the purpose of this exercise is? The game, I mean, not the climbing."

I make the mistake of looking down toward the pavement that is slowly falling farther and farther away. Panic wells up inside me, but I will not let it control me. Heights is one of my biggest fears, one of the few fears that I have. And I have yet to overcome it.

"Learning about strategy," says Tris. "Teamwork, maybe."

"Teamwork," I say with a snicker. The current leadership would disagree. Maybe originally this would have been about teamwork, but not anymore. Not with Eric in charge.

"Maybe not," she contemplates. "Teamwork doesn't seem to be a Dauntless priority."

"It's supposed to be a priority. It used to be," I say.

The wind blows with more force up here and I am having to fight harder to breathe and ignore my fear.

"Now tell me…" I struggle out. "What do you think learning strategy has to do with…bravery?"

Tris pauses for a moment. She seems like she is thinking about the question and her response.

A cloud passes over the moon and I watch the light shifts across the figure above me, she is beautiful and strong. The moon light illuminates every strands of her wavy blonde hair. I would love to reach up and run my fingers through her hair.

"It…it prepares you to act," she answers. "You learn strategy so you can use it."

At this point, I am barely keeping my fear in check. My breaths are coming in heavy, ragged gasps.

"Are you alright, Four?"

"Are you _human_, Tris? Being up this high…" I gulp. "It doesn't scare you at all?"

At the question, she looks down and ponders the question. There is no doubt that a fall from this height will kill us. But that doesn't seem to bother her. Before she has a chance to respond, a gust of wind throws her body off balance and into the side of the ladder. She clings to the rungs to keep from falling. Without hesitation, I wrap my hand around one of her hips to steady her. One of my fingers catches a strip of bare skin just under the hem of her t-shirt and the feel of her smooth soft skin sends a shock through my arm. I guide her body back onto the ladder with ease. I remove my hand but my skin still tingles where I made contact with hers. Suddenly I can feel my heartbeat race even faster, and I know that height isn't the only thing causing me to feel this way.

"You okay?" I murmur.

"Yes," she reassures.

We climb silently until we reach the platform midway up the Ferris wheel. Tris moves onto the platform, sits down and scoots to the end to make room for me. She dangles her legs over the edge with no fear. I don't move toward her, I crouch down and press my back against the metal support. I am trying to put as much distance between me and the edge of the platform. I lean here breathing heavily trying desperately to ignore my fear.

"You're afraid of heights," she says to me. "How do you survive in the Dauntless compound?"

"I ignore my fear," I explain. "When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn't exist."

I look out at the vast expanse of the city below, but I can feel her eyes lingering on my face.

"What?" I whisper.

"Nothing."

"We're not high enough," Tris says.

Yeah, I disagree with that!

She looks up to examine the tangle of bars above us, the scaffolding of the wheel. I follow her gaze and realize that we are going to need to climb on the rusted scaffolding to get higher.

"I'm going to climb." She stands up and reaches for one of the bars overhead.

"For God's sake, Stiff." I groan.

"You don't have to follow me."

Tris pauses and looks to the scaffolding. She begins by wedging her foot onto the place where two bars cross and she pulls herself up, grabbing another bar in the process. She sways for a second and my heart drops.

"Yes I do," I tell her.

I quickly begin to follow her up. My body is tense but I continue to climb behind her. We slowly continue to climb and she suddenly stops above me. I can see that she has found a point that she can see beyond the building that was blocking our view. I climb up right behind her, straddling her legs with mine as I stand directly behind her looking over her shoulder. I'm not sure what possessed me to climb up right behind her like this, but I am closer to her than I have ever been. I can feel the rise and fall of her back on my chest and my mouth is right next to her ear. I hope she can't feel the thunderous heartbeat that is threatening to escape my chest.

"See that?" she says, pointing at a tiny pulsing light way out in the distance.

"Yeah," I say quietly next to her ear. A smile spreads across my face. We found the other team's hiding spot!

"It's coming from the park at the end of the pier," I say. "Figures. It's surrounded by open space, but the trees provide some camouflage. Obviously not enough."

She looks over her shoulder at me. We are so close that I could easily kiss her. She gazes at me, my eyes, mouth, chin. I stare into her beautiful blue/grey eyes and almost forget where I am. The more I'm with her the more beautiful she gets.

"Um," Tris clears her throat. "Start climbing down. I'll follow you."

I nod silently and begin my decent, trying desperately to control my trembling body. At least I'm sure now that the trembling has less to do with the height and more to do with Tris.

Suddenly I hear a creak and a clang from above and see the crossbar that Tris was standing on crash toward the ground. I gasp and realize that there is no way that I can get to her and get her down safely. She dangles from the bar that she had been grasping with her hands and the next closest rung is feet away from her.

"Four!" she screams

."Hold on!" I call to her. "Just hold on. I have an idea."

I move quickly toward the platform, and then move as fast as I can move to the ladder and fly down the ladder faster than I ever knew I could move. I run for the controls.

"Four!" Tris screams again.

"_Hold on! I'll save you! I will never let you fall!"_ I think to myself.

My eyes scan the control panel as I try to figure out how to release the lock and bring her safely to the ground. I find the release and press the start button. Slowly the wheel begins to creek and moan while it begins to turn. It moves slowly at first then more quickly as she gets closer to the ground.

I watch it carry Tris until she's close enough to the ground that she releases the bar that kept her from falling. She drops onto the ground, rolling several times to get away from the car bearing down on her.

When she is safe, she lies still on the ground and presses her hands to her face. I hurry over to where she is, wrap my hands gently around her wrists and pry her hands away from her face to make sure she is okay. I enclose one of her hands in both of mine and try to sooth her.

"You all right?" I ask.

"Yeah."

I can't help myself, I begin to laugh. My body once tense is now so thankful that she is okay that I can't hide my hysteria. She looks at me and starts to laugh too. She pushes herself up with her free hand and suddenly we are within inches of each other. I have another overpowering urge to kiss her, but I suppress it. I don't want to scare her away.

I stand and pull Tris up with me. The Ferris wheel is still moving creating a wind that sends her hair tumbling around her face. I can't help but think about how beautiful she is and wonder if she has any idea. I can feel the electricity between us as I continue to hold her hand for another moment. She looks at me, does she feel this too? I wish I could see her more clearly through the moonlight.

"You could have told me that the Ferris wheel still worked," she says casually, "We wouldn't have had to climb in the first place.

"I would have, if I had known," I say. "Couldn't just let you hang there, so I took a risk. Come on, time to get their flag."

I hesitate, but decide to continue with my small amount of boldness, I take her arm in my hand and we walk back to the carousel.


End file.
